Newtown Archives - StoryCorps

10 Years After Sandy Hook: Remembering Jesse Lewis

On the morning of December 14, 2012, a gunman killed twenty six people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty of them were between the ages of 6 and 7.

Six-year-old Jesse Lewis was among those killed.

Jesse Lewis posing for his mom, Scarlett Lewis, on the morning of December 14, 2012. He stands in front of Scarlett’s car, on which he’d written, ‘I love you’ and drawn hearts in the frost. Photo courtesy of Scarlett Lewis.

His mother Scarlett Lewis has spent the subsequent ten years founding and leading the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Movement, dedicated to creating safer and more loving communities.

She and her mother Maureen came to StoryCorps to share their memories of Jesse and the importance of gratitude.

Maureen Lewis (left) and Scarlett Lewis at their StoryCorps interview in Sandy Hook, Connecticut on November 27, 2022. By Halle Hewitt for StoryCorps.

 

Top Photo: Jesse Lewis posing for his first grade school photo at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Fall, 2012. Photo courtesy of Scarlett Lewis.

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